-At the beginning of the show, they announce a Taylor/Sarita street fight for later in the night. Hot damn! The show just started and we're already doing better than we were this time last month!
TAYLOR WILDE & SARITA BACKSTAGE BRAWL
-Wow, they're already going at it. I like where this is heading.
-Sarita says that she beat Taylor last week. I guess their first match took place on Xplosion. Sigh... If TNA is going to continue to build angles like this on Xplosion, they really need to upload that show on their youtube page until it starts airing in the U.S. In the meantime, I'm going to have to download that match somewhere; I bet it was awesome.
-Not to sound like a typical guy or anything, but DAMN, was Sarita rocking those tight jeans or what?
STREET FIGHT:
SARITA vs. TAYLOR WILDE
-YES! FINALLY something interesting! This was just what I've been asking for! This was, hands down, the best Knockouts action on iMPACT in ages. And the crazy thing is that there wasn't even any wrestling -- just two women beating the snot out of each other, and it was great!
-I really hope this feud goes for a while because these two are going to make just as great opponents as they were partners. I'm still bummed about the implosion of their tag team, but I'm really excited to see where their rivalry goes.
-After one segment, the heel Sarita is already better than the heel Madison Rayne. And why? Because Sarita can actually sell action like this convincingly. I love the vicious streak she showed with choking Taylor until she passed out. Can you even imagine what a lame spectacle it would be if they put Madison in a street fight? Screw Madison Rayne! Make Sarita the top heel!
-And what a great capper -- not only does Sarita finally win a match on iMPACT, but she's gone back to her awesome original music. I really loved her and Taylor's music, but it's not like this is a change for the worse.
-What a breath of fresh air this was. Let's hope they keep it up. Heel Sarita FTW!
VELVET SKY & LACEY VON ERICH BACKSTAGE SEGMENT
-Interesting. Velvet is pissed off about Madison's attitude towards the two of them lately as well as her bringing in Tara, er... I mean, that mystery woman to join the group without telling them. This could be the teasing of a face turn for Velvet & Lacey or it could be the implosion of TBP (or rather their current incarnation). Either way, God help me, but I'm actually intrigued.
MADISON RAYNE IN-RING PROMO
-Madison is protesting the referee's decision to award the title to Angelina because neither Velvet nor Lacey were the mystery woman on the motor bike at Victory Road. Yeah... and you could have easily proved that by simply asking her to remove the helmet concealing her identity at the PPV. Why didn't you just do that in the first place, you moron?
VELVET SKY, LACEY VON ERICH, MADISON RAYNE & ANGELINA LOVE IN-RING PROMO
-I'll be damned. I actually really liked this. With the heels teasing legitimate tension that was built up in a logical way over several weeks, TBP finally became relevant for the first time in God knows how long. It looks like the current incarnation of the group may be about done, and that's just fine with me. Velvet & Lacey might be turning face which, if nothing else is something different than what we've been seeing for a long time now. Meanwhile, Madison actually looked like a stronger heel than she did at any point during her title run. It's also worth mentioning that this was probably the most comfortable on the mic Madison has been so far.
ANGELINA & MADISON BRAWL.
-Another bullseye. Were the Knockouts booked by a different creative team this week? Seriously, it's so rare these days that everything clicks like this. If Madison had been booked this way all along, her title reign might have actually worked. This was the first time she's ever looked dangerous and it didn't come off as being completely transparent or manufactured. The only problem was that when she was standing face-to-face with Velvet & Lacey, she looked like a midget. Geez, that woman is tiny.
-It's very telling that the Knockouts actually got two segments devoted to them (like they used to get every week) and solid screen time for both on a night when Hogan & Bischoff did not appear on the show. The Knockout division turned to crap when those guys showed up in January, then they take the week off and suddenly it gets better. Coincidence? You tell me.
-I can't wait to see what happens next week which, according to the spoilers, Hogan & Bischoff will also not appear on.
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7/22/10 iMPACT
-I was able to find the Sarita vs. Taylor match from Xplosion (thank you, diva-dirt.com) and it was awesome. Great action, chain wrestling, tons of near falls, basically lots of stuff you're never ever going to see in a TBP match. And just because this is my blog and I can write what I want, I'm going to embed it on here for those of you who, like myself, live in the states and aren't able to watch Xplosion on TV. Enjoy!
-It's a shame that didn't take place on iMPACT, as it was easily the best Knockouts match since Sarita & Taylor vs. Kong & Hamada back in January.
-I can't wait for Xplosion to start airing in America because, from what I've seen from downloading the show, the matches tend to be a lot longer than the ones on iMPACT. Hell, this had to be the longest Knockout match TNA has put on in months and it was much better for having that extra time. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise that the bulk of this feud is taking place on Xplosion; the booking seems to be a lot better on that show.
THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE & SARITA BACKSTAGE SEGMENT
-Fine segment for what it needed to do. I guess TBP break up isn't official just yet. That's fine. The teases continue to be well done.
-So Angelina has to give the Knockouts title back to Madison tonight because of the "controversial" title change at Victory Road? You know, I hate to point out the obvious again here, but Madison could have easily avoided this by simply asking
ANGELINA LOVE (c) & TAYLOR WILDE vs. MADISON RAYNE & SARITA. MADISON,
-Taylor & Sarita on iMPACT two weeks in a row? Both of them in a match with actual feuds and storylines attached? Me likey!
-Angelina has to give the belt back to Madison before the match. I wonder if we'll ever have a title change in the Knockout division that isn't complete BS.
-The heels lost the match and it was Madison, not Sarita, who ate the pin. Thank you, TNA writers.
-The match wasn't very long (big surprise). This was classic Russo booking where the post-match antics completely overshadowed the match itself. Fortunately, the post-match stuff was actually well done this week. The bodyguard's identity is obvious if you just think about it for a minute, but they're doing a decent job of building the mystery of who it is, and it's being used as a catalyst to shake up the status quo in the division.
-I actually really like how this is going right now. I still don't buy Madison as the top heel, but this is the most interesting her character has been now that she's teaming with Sarita and sowing seeds of dissent in TBP. I expect this will lead to Velvet & Angelina reuniting, but that would at least be something new if they do it as babyfaces. I didn't like the title change, but damned if I'm not interested to see where this all goes.
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7/29/10 iMPACT
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE BACKSTAGE SEGMENT
-The split continues. As sick as I am of TBP, this angle is being done well. Good performances from all three women here. The story is that Madison is the instigator whose ego is causing friction between her and Velvet, and Lacey is the one caught in the middle, doesn't know which side to take and just wants them all to get along. It's pretty basic character work, but it's been handled surprisingly competently so far, and TBP are playing their parts well in these segments.
#1 CONTENDERS MATCH:
SARITA vs. ANGELINA LOVE
-It's refreshing to see an iMPACT match between two of the women who actually know what they're doing in the ring. Yes, dummies, that was a shot at TBP.
-Too short, but very nice while it lasted. I really wish they had cut the HORRID Orlando Jordan match that came after this and gave Angelina & Sarita a few more minutes. They could've had a much better match with more time and it probably would have drawn more viewers than Jordan drove away by being the no-talent, ratings-killing piece of garbage that he is.
-Angelina wins the match, so she gets the title shot. Again. This is hardly surprisingly, nor is it remotely interesting at this point. If the writers really wanted to stir the pot, they could have had Sarita go over here. Yes, her and Madison are both heels and supposedly aligned with each other now, but they could have made a story out of that AND it would have been something different. It's high time the writers got behind one of the Knockouts who are not TBP-related. But, hey, at least Sarita was on iMPACT for another consecutive week; that's better than her sitting on the bench.
-That being said, Angelina's never-ending push has got to stop sooner or later. If the writers are so damn high on her, one has to wonder why she was Gail Kim and Taylor Wilde's bitch for the first year of the Knockout division.
-Good crowd reaction to this match. The fans are responding to Sarita as a heel. That's a good sign.
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8/05/10 iMPACT
-News is going around that Sarita was taken off a CMLL card because she has some type of arm injury. Damn it! What horrible timing! Just when TNA was finally starting to use her again! I really want to scream right now. I hope she won't be out long. If she is, it will probably mean an even longer push for Madison Rayne and
KNOCKOUT TAG TITLE MATCH:
TAYLOR WILDE & HAMADA vs. THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (c).
-Wow. For once, in a TBP match, the babyfaces did NOT have their entrance cut out. This is the first time that's happened in a long time. What's even weirder about this is that TBP came out first when the title holders traditionally come out last. This can only mean one thing: new champs are about to be crowned. Thank God!
-HAMADA! Holy crap! How long has it been since we've seen her? I'm not sure exactly, but it's been a couple months. I believe the last iMPACT match she appeared in was the one where she was pinned by Velvet Sky during a commercial break, and now here she is in a title match against Velvet. It's kind of ironic when you think about it.
-Dear God in heaven... Lacey. Is. Awful. Absolutely AWFUL! A-W-F-U-L! AAAAWWWWFFFFUUUULLLL!!!! For the life of me, I don't know what TNA management are thinking even putting this woman in the ring when she obviously has no clue what she's doing. And she was tagged in nearly the entire time, which means this was one pretty damn ugly match.
-Lacey, when even Ayako Hamada can't carry you in the ring, it's time to find a new line of work. Seriously. Just stop trying. I mean this more than anything. Be a manager, be a valet, be an interviewer, be a swimsuit model, be ANYTHING else. Just quit wrestling before you embarrass yourself any more than you already have and, more importantly, before you injure yourself or someone else. You suck. Plain and simple.
-This is not even a case of someone who has been trained to wrestle but just doesn't have the athletic ability to do it. Lacey has clearly received virtually no formal training, and it shows. It really shows. It's not simply a matter of her delivering bad wrestling matches. This is about Lacey being a danger to herself and others in the ring due to gross incompetence on her part and gross negligence and disregard for the safety of their female performers on TNA management's part for even putting someone like her in the ring in the first place.
-This atrocious match is better left forgotten, and that's putting it mildly, but the end result was what should've happened months ago. The belts are off TBP, finally. And thank God for that; they were horrible champions. They didn't have a single match that was any good at all during their title reign. The titles practically disappeared while they had them. It was the female equivalent of Hall & Nash being the tag team champions before TNA management came to their senses, stripped the has-beens of the titles and put the belts on a real team, the Motor City Machine Guns. I don't expect Taylor & Hamada to have the same effect on the Knockout tag team division that the Guns & Beer Money have had for the men's division since all the focus continues to be on TBP members former and present, but this is sure as hell one big step in the right direction.
VELVET SKY & MADISON RAYNE BACKSTAGE BRAWL. LACEY IS INJURED
-Yep, more TBP stuff. God forbid we check in with the new champions or anything trivial like that. Sigh...
-Christ almighty, Lacey doesn't know how to bump in a backstage brawl either. Is it too much to hope that she'll be off TV, selling this injury until her contract runs out?
-And just to show my readers that I am not alone in my completely fair and justified criticism of Lacey, here are some tweets made by Dustin Rhodes after this week's show:
"Lacy has no talent whatsoever"-----
"She is horrible"
"Great family but her no"
-Dustin Rhodes, www.twitter.com/WWEGoldust
8/12/10 The Whole F'n Show
ANGELINA LOVE vs. MADISON RAYNE (c).
-Mike Tenay says that Lacey will be out of action for weeks with a broken cheekbone. There is a God. :)
-Not a whole lot to say here. An okay match, which is about all that Madison Rayne delivers at the best of times unless she has an opponent talented enough to carry her to something better (ex. Roxxi). I'm very happy her title reign is finally over because she just wasn't cutting it as the top heel and she was never going to.
-Having said that, I REALLY hope this doesn't give way to yet another push for Tara. If we're looking at yet another Tara vs. Angelina match at Bound For Glory, I can't think of anything that would interest me less at this point. That feud has been done to death.
-Why do the writers continue to keep the biker chick's identity a secret? Why don't they just reveal it already? They have to know they're not fooling anybody. EVERYONE knows who she is. The crowd was chanting Tara's name when she appeared. To have the announcers and wrestlers continue to feign ignorance is just ridiculous. The cat is out of the bag. Besides, there was no reason to even try to keep her a secret in the first place.
-Considering it took place on a show that was advertised as being all action, this match was pretty short. I'm just saying.
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